Who needs change?

Since, I was a young girl; I never liked to miss when Mexico played a soccer match. As we grew, my younger brother developed a passion for soccer. My parents decided that they would place him in a soccer team. After, going to all his practices and games, I began to develop a love for this sport. However, when I asked if I could join a soccer team, I was told, "Natali, women don't play soccer." I had never been self-conscious of my gender. At that my point, a spark of feminism had been implanted into an 8-year old girl. Many people relate feminist to being man-haters, aggressive, and unattractive women. Feminist seek gender equality. Gender inequality is a global issue, which is not given much importance. It is mentality that has been planted into the minds of people in society. It is something that has been going on for many centuries, where women have been taught to submit to men, because they know what is best. This has affected today's society in a number of ways; young babies in Asia are being sold and killed because they are females. It is considered an honor to carry a baby boy, but when it is a girl parents want to get rid of her. This has been going on for quite some time in China because they have a limit on how many children they can have and many prefer males over females. Due to this, today the population of males is much greater than the females. Men are finding it extremely difficult to find a wife. Since there aren't enough women, many women are being kidnapped and raped by men that seek female championship, but cannot obtain one. Women living in places like the Middle East are not allowed to leave their homes without their husband's permission. Their daughters are not allowed to go to school. In some cases, women are being raped, for traveling alone. And the law does nothing to protect them because they are "inferior" to men and therefore, do not matter. For many of these women in the Middle East, are forced into these living conditions because of religion or culture. In many religions, women are expected to be submissive and weak. These mentality leads to violence toward women. Within the United States, women face inequality. For example, women in finance, working the same number of years as their male co-workers, for the same amount of time, will not get paid the same amount of money. This is an issue that is will have an impact on every female living in the United States of America. It affects me, as a future business woman, who wants to be able to succeed in her career. It is not just in the business field, but women working in Wal-Mart were facing discrimination because of their gender. I think it is interesting that as modern as the world has become, there is no country that has truly achieved gender equality. Gender inequality is an issue that affects your daughters, mothers, sisters, and cousins. If we don’t start to do something about it, what about the millions of girls in our future generations? I read Emma Watson’s speech at the UN and I think she made a lot of interesting points. A point that always stays with me, men have to be part of the process so that women can obtain their equality. It is uniting and coming together that will make the difference in issues such as this one. In the words of Emma Watson, “If not me? Who? If not now? When?”